On the eighth day of December 1796, the Chinese army raised several observation balloons on the north bank of the Thang Long section of the Fuliang River.

Is there such a thing as a hot air balloon, technically it is not difficult, just a layer of window paper, in essence, it is just an enlarged Kong Ming lantern, the difficulty is how to install power on it, how to use it, and how to let the people know the principle of this thing.

Among them, the first difficulty: the installation of power has not yet been realized, and all hot air balloons are still directly tied in mid-air with long hemp ropes.

The third difficulty has now been solved - through Xu Shiyang personally to inspire college students to make the first hot air balloon by hand, and then continue to do touring performances in important cities such as Quancheng, Yanjing, Jinling, Hangcheng (Lin'an was renamed), Bianliang, etc., and let the generals go to heaven to practice courage and newspapers, most Chinese people at least know that there is such a thing, and this thing is not unusual, not the daytime ascension that people imagine.

As for the second difficulty, this is the best way to solve, after all, Xu Shiyang is a traverser, he has countless experiences from his predecessors to learn from.

Hot air balloons cannot be used to bomb the enemy, but they can be used to observe the impact point of the artillery and guide the artillery to fire.

For example, now, those Cochin river boats hiding in some forks in the south bank of the Fuliang River are completely invisible in the eyes of observers on the hot air balloon, and then they can guide the artillery positions on the north bank to fire blindly through flags.

……

"Don't be afraid! The Northern Thieves can't build big ships, they are no match for my sailors! They will never be able to cross the Furagawa River! ”

Li Changjie is still cheering up his generals and soldiers—that's all he can do now.

"On the Fura River, our sailors are invincible! When the time comes, the cannons of the northern thieves will not dare to fire......"

"Taifu! Taifu! Big things are not good!! A pro-soldier ran over, and when he approached Li Changjie's side, he also stumbled, disgraced, and was almost taken down by others as a thief.

"Why are you so flustered!"

Li Changjie tried to calm down, what he needs most now is a soldier's stable mentality, if they are all panicked when they encounter something like this fool, I am afraid that the morale that has bottomed out will not be left at all.

"Taifu! Go check it out! The Northern Thief has summoned the Heavenly Demon! ”

With a bang, the entire battalion erupted in an uncontrollable exclamation:

"What? Heavenly Demons? ”

Li Changjie couldn't bear his anger, he directly kicked the herald to the ground: "It's nonsense!" Where did the Heavenly Demon come from! ”

The Jiaozhi people believe in Futu, and Li Changjie is no exception, he doesn't dare to say that there are no heavenly demons in this world, but he doesn't believe that the northerners can attract that thing for their own use.

"It's true! It's true! ”

When the herald got up again, he was already in tears:

"It's flying in the sky of Jiangbei! A lot of people have seen it! Taifu, please go and have a look! Let's figure it out! ”

How many people have seen it? Is it true?

Li Changjie no longer disregarded the morale of the generals around him, and took a few personal guards to get on his horse and run towards the river.

Before he reached the river, Li Changjie saw several round ghost faces floating in the air from a long distance, and those blue-faced and fanged monsters were staring at this side viciously with copper-bell-like eyes!

"Phew!" Li Changjie was shocked in his heart, he subconsciously tightened the reins, the mount was caught off guard, and the neighing person stood up, throwing the Dayue Kingdom Taifu off the horse in a trance!

"Taifu!" Several loyal guards immediately dismounted and helped Li Changjie, who was full of meat and vegetables, from the ground.

But more people's eyes widened, looking at the grimaces floating in the distance in mid-air, as if they were really heavenly demons who had taken away their souls.

……

Painting ghost faces on hot air balloons is not Xu Shiyang's idea, it is just some kind of tradition - similar to painting ghost faces and tiger heads on shields.

No one could have imagined that this thing could have such a big effect.

Not only did the Jiaozhi soldiers on the south bank of the Fuliang River have a large-scale commotion after seeing this thing, but even the Youjiang Dongman, who belongs to the camp of the Chinese army in Jiangbei, saw that this thing really flew up, and his first reaction was to quickly kneel down and muttered the Diamond Sutra in a whisper to those ghost faces.

"Stand up! Get to work! ”

A few Chinese military policemen poked them with small sticks and told them to hurry up and continue to supervise the newly captured Jiaozhi slaves to cut down wood—the shipbuilding work could not be stopped.

"It's just a normal weapon! You unseen things! Hurry up! ”

A gendarme shouted discontentedly:

"Even if it's really a heavenly demon, and now that we are detained here to help us fight, are you still afraid of a bird?"

As soon as these words came out, those cave barbarians were even more afraid, but the object of fear changed from the heavenly demons flying in the air to the Chinese soldiers who turned a blind eye to it.

Be able to detain the Heavenly Demon for your own use!

Is there anything in this world that the Han people can't do?

……

No matter what the Jiaozhi thieves and Dongman thought, the Chinese army still carried out its tasks step by step.

Under the guidance of the artillery observers on the hot air balloon, the Chinese artillery fired at the Cochin Naval Division flotilla hiding in the fork.

The cannons raised the muzzle angle to the highest, and even raised the gun carriage with mounds of earth, and after firing, the shells flew over the obstacles in the field of vision in an extremely high parabola and flew towards the target.

The small ships crowded in those forks of the road had no way to hide, and they could sink 2 or 3 ships with a single shot, and the Jiaozhi naval army quickly collapsed under the double attack of the "Heavenly Demon" and the physical attack of artillery fire.

There was a mass exodus from the sailors, and some officers mustered up the courage to stop it, but the sailors, who were afraid that the heavenly demons would take away their souls, unceremoniously stabbed their commanders.

Others thought that they should ask Li Changjie for help and asked their own commander to send troops to curb the momentum of the escape, but when Li Changjie fell off the horse, his leg was trampled off by the horse's hooves, and he was already in a coma at this time.

The entire Vietnamese army camp was in a deadly mess, and no one had time to pay attention to the officers of the naval division, and no one was willing to send troops to reinforce them.

As a result, before the Chinese army sank all the small boats with one cannon, the Jiaozhi naval army had already retreated.

Of course, the Chinese army itself did not know this, so they still did not hesitate to shoot at those empty boats.

With no counter-firepower, the Chinese used these targets as targets on the training ground, and in the later stages of the shelling they even began to use red-hot shells (which were burned red before being shot out in order to ignite enemy ships) and experimental flowering shells (thin-skinned shells filled with gunpowder, which were lit with a fuse before being fired).

Neither proved to be very effective, and the red-hot rounds, despite their partitions, were still dangerous to stuff into the chamber full of propellants.

It is difficult to grasp the length of the fuse with flowering shells, and the proportion of proper explosions on the enemy's head is sad.

Of course, even so, in the face of those easy targets, the Chinese artillery still completely destroyed the Fuliangjiang Naval Division of the Jiaozhi thieves.